The Culture Secretary has summoned the heads of Britain’s mobile phone networks to a crunch meeting in November to thrash out an agreement to avoid further delays to the auction of frequencies needed to launch 4G services.

The auction has already been pushed back to the fourth quarter of 2012 at the earliest after the telecommunications regulator launched a fresh review of the auction process that will drag on until next summer. However, even the prospect of completing the sale by the end of next year appeared shaky as Ofcom said it would “perhaps” begin the auction by December.